To mark the Weatherman’s 45th anniversary former Weatherman Jeff Laster will discuss whether ‘Violence against People’ and ‘Violence against Property’ radical activism are redundant in the U.S., UK and rest of the West.

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The Weather Underground Organization (WUO), commonly known as the Weather Underground, was an American radical left organisation founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally called Weatherman, the group became known colloquially as the Weathermen.

Weatherman organized in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their supporters. Their goal was to create a clandestine revolutionary party for the overthrow of the U.S. government.

With revolutionary positions characterised by black power and opposition to the Vietnam War, the group conducted a campaign of bombings through the mid-1970s and took part in actions such as the jailbreak of Dr. Timothy Leary. The “Days of Rage”, their first public demonstration on October 8, 1969, was a riot in Chicago timed to coincide with the trial of the Chicago Seven. In 1970, the group issued a “Declaration of a State of War” against the United States government.

To mark the Weatherman’s 45th anniversary former Weatherman Jeff Laster will discuss whether Weatherman (and other violent protest groups such as Red Army/Red Brigades/Angry Brigade/Class War) were ever truly relevant to radical political change or, as Jeff puts it, “were they just a bunch of Che Guevera wannabee kids”?

Various books on Weatherman/Weather Underground will be on sale.